If you have an existing Sametime infrastructure pointing to the local Domino dir for users/groups and you introduce WebSphere Portal pointing to another LDAP (say ITDS or AD etc.), then inorder to get awareness to work within Portal you need to perform some additional steps.1. Name mapping by modifying the person document in the Domino dir to add the LDAP DN (replacing , with /) as the last entry in the user name/full name field.2. Add the following parameter to CSEnvironment.properties on the Portal serverCS_SERVER_SAMETIME_1.useLTPAToken=falseThis ensures that awareness calls uses the LDAP DN (say uid=1234,ou=people,o=abc) and the STToken instead of the LTPA token. Sametime is able to resolve this user to CN=James Bond/OU=Secret/O=Spy as well as log him into STCommunity using the token.If you use the default setup (of using LTPA Token) you will get an error on the Contact List portlet - "Unable to resolve user".--raj--

We're working on a few things around here related to Workplace Designer. 1. I wrote an article for The View...24 pages worth! You have to be a subscriber to read it, or it should be in your mailboxes already. I love doing these articles because they have such good editors over there.2. A redpaper is almost done and I should be seeing a draft tomorrow. The team built a great component and really took the tool through its paces. Thanks to John Bergland, Redbook project leader, and the team: Adam Egressy from Ad Hoc Systems; Nick Orrick from IBM Austin; and Marc Weinzetl from IBM Deutschland. You'll be able to download the code with the paper when it's posted.3. Samples, samples, samples. We are busy writing sample components, doing code reviews, and soon we'll start posting them to developerWorks.

(There's also a Domino app dev Redpiece in progress that started this week. More on that later...)

I've been in Orlando since Saturday and have attended the first two days of Lotusphere: the Business Development Day on Sunday and the very busy opening day on Monday. I've gone to as many sessions as an attendee can fit in, given the limitations of being able to be in just one place at one time. I've taken lots of notes and thought about the articles I will write for lotus.com in a few days. And even though I'm still letting all the details about strategy and new products and future directions percolate and brew, there are a few things I have learned so far.

Three factoids from a slide show in the Dolphin Hemisphere Ballroom before the Opening General Session-- All polar bears are left-handed.-- If you want to see a rainbow, face away from the sun.-- When making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, 96% of all sandwich makers put the peanut butter on the bread before the jelly. Other tidbits-- "The real benefit of writing is fame, not riches." -- Liz Olsen, Advisor Media, Inc., speaking at the BDD session "Hear All About It! A Business Partner's Guide to Getting Press Attention"-- No one at home in Tewksbury, MA, wants to hear that it was pretty chilly pool-side at the Sunday night opening reception.

In the Solutions Showcase at Lotusphere, I met up with a group of folks who are working to organize a global user group community for Lotus Professionals. They held a BOF (sorry I missed it) to bring people together face-to-face in Orlando.

Membership is free and has a variety of great benefits - including online Forums and webcasts, free practice exams for certification testing, savings on technical books and magazines and probably best of all - a chance to network with your peers and industry experts.

Our Designer designers have added their thoughts to the mix in this article."In this article, we provide an overview of the following key Workplace Designer design goals and how they are realized in the product: * Provide fast time to value using a visual development tool. * Optional separation of presentation and data. * Support document-centric programming model. * Provide flexible ways to add event-based logic. * Enable collaborative capabilities provided by IBM Workplace Collaboration Services. * Support a consistent approach with other IBM application development tools. * Provide ease of learning through sample applications and a tutorial."

Fast Company has a great article on the Top 25 jobs for 2005. I'm glad to see Computer Software Engineer has its place for 2005 along with Personal Financial Advisor and Producer/Director. They considered factors such as high demand, salary range, investment in education, and the ability to be innovative and creative in your job. I had thought that many "science" type jobs didn't allow for innovations so I was surprised to see a lot of engineer and scientist jobs.

Why is Computer Software Engineer hot? They tell us it looks like computers are here to stay. Good for us!

This offer is available now in North America and South America (including Caribbean nations), Australia, New Zealand, China, Taiwan and Korea. It will be available soon in other countries; please check back for updates.

The folks at Wellesley Information Services, publishers of "The View", have started a new journal, The Sphere, focused on "WebSphere developers, administrators, architects, and managers".

The current issue includes my own article on Workplace Designer (slightly updated from "The View" version for this audience). It looks like there are other in-depth articles on JSF, portal upgrades, WebSphere Everyplace Deployment managed-client apps, and more, at 124 pages.

You can check out a reprint from a past issue here, if you want to inspect the quality of information. I've found The View articles to be well-written and contain deep, practical information from experts in their field. It looks like The Sphere upholds that tradition.

Personally, I was busy all day, so didn't have a chance to put together a full report of the rest of the day. I guess I should have done the live blogging thing in the opening session, which I thought went well overall.

There seems to be a good buzz this year.

NOTE: Domino Object Model Posters and WP Designer Doc API posters are in the Product Showcase on tables along the walls. If nothing else, look for the Redbooks pedestal in the back and you'll find them.

A result of the PureEdge Solutions acquisition, Workplace Forms has just come out and is now available on Passport Advantage. I got to know some of the folks at PureEdge this past summer and they are an extremely capable company. They've been working in the e-forms market for over 10 years, so the product is mature, full-featured, and performs well. If you have a business problem that includes being able to treat a form and it's instance data together as one document, for security and legal compliance reasons (think, signed contract), or to present a paper form with pixel-level precision (govt or insurance forms), then you should check it out. You can also include attachments in the mix. For simple forms, the tool is easy to use and you don't run out of steam like some other products from our competitors. Even though this is under the IBM Workplace banner, a Workplace server is not required. Workplace Forms can be integrated with anything out there - I mean anything! This presents an opportunity for enterprising developers to build whole solutions for their customers. IBM will or does provide some out of the box integration kits for Content Manager, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Notes/Domino, and Workplace Collaboration Services, but those are due next year.

There are a lot of great sessions, especially in the Bootcamp, where you will find the popular hands-on sessions. Check it out and start planning now. Let us know what looks interesting, and what doesn't!

This traditional session, held on Thursday afternoon, could also be described as a "geekfest." Moderated by Kevin Cavanaugh, this panel of 30 developers fielded questions from the audience and took notes of questions to follow up later. The emphasis here was on when fixes and new features and enhancements might be incorporated in planned releases. The panel members were clear in saying that the feature set for Notes Domino 7 is complete; additional items will not be considered for release 7.

One audience member noted that "it's been a number of years since I've seen this level of excitement at Lotusphere. I'm happy to see live demos."